


I don't know what this is, but it doesn't feel wrong

by Luthor



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, First Time, Scorfuma, Tribbing, in which Perfuma says 'look mom no hands!'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:13:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24845851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthor/pseuds/Luthor
Summary: “Catra mentioned how she and Adora are together, now,” she says, and her voice sounds steady and strong, and does not belie the way her belly flips or her heart hammers inside her chest,pit-patlike a drum beat, growing faster. “The way that they’re…together, together. As lovers, I mean. And then she asked me about us.”Perfuma’s lips audibly part.“O-oh…”“I didn’t say anything!” Scorpia hurries to add, and then winces. “Because, well, because there’s… we haven’t… I, um…”
Relationships: Perfuma/Scorpia (She-Ra)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 325
Collections: Scorfuma Rights





	I don't know what this is, but it doesn't feel wrong

Nightfall bathes Plumeria in sweet-scented shadow.

The air is thick with residual humidity from a day spent sun-soaking, and the Heart Blossom twinkles, luminescent, as it catches the glow from the moons. Beneath a canopy of drapes, in her own private tents, where torches have been lit for both light and comfort, Perfuma pours two teacups of her bedtime blend and takes them to the pile of cushions where her girlfriend waits.

As she sits and catches her eye, a red flush fills Scorpia’s cheeks, and Perfuma’s smile broadens.

It’s still fairly new, this tentative connection that has blossomed between them, and yet long overdue. When Perfuma thinks back on how it had started, it’s not their first, aching kiss that her memory settles upon, but a blurry past of friendship and mutual respect that developed naturally into something more without either of their awareness. By the time they decided to take it further, the love was already there, a solid and fully realised foundation ready to be built upon.

Their first kiss was just a formality, so to speak, but it was one that Perfuma had enjoyed immensely.

Scorpia takes her teacup with quiet thanks, more than happy to indulge in the routine that she has quickly adopted for herself. Perfuma watches her first sip, the way that Scorpia’s dark eyes close and her hunched shoulders droop with a sigh, as though all the tension were seeping from her muscles. Studying her, Perfuma suspends her teacup mid-sip and then lowers it completely, not yet having taken a sip.

“Is everything alright? You seem a little tense tonight.” Her expression softens with concern. “Did everything go to plan in the Fright Zone? I know rebuilding is taking a little longer than you were hoping.”

Scorpia almost inhales a mouthful of tea in her haste to speak.

Spluttering, she coughs into a pincer and nods her head. Her cheeks are almost as red as her carapace. “Y-yeah! Of course! It went abso—” _cough_ , “excuse me— lutely fine! No-no, I’m not choking, please don’t worry, it just went down the wrong hole there, haha! Oh— what, what about you? Was your day okay?”

Perfuma blinks, bemused but appeased. “Yes, perfectly well. But are you _sure?_ You can tell me if something happened.” She wets her lips and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, adding: “You’ve been quiet ever since you came home. I don’t mean to press, and we don’t need to talk about it, but you know that I’m here, don’t you? If you need somebody. For anything.”

“I know,” Scorpia says, and then smiles shyly. “I like when you call it that. _Home_.”

Perfuma reaches between them, taking a pincer in her hand.

“Of course, it is. For as long as you want it to be.”

Scorpia’s gaze falls to their joined hands, and her smile wilts.

After a brief pause, she says, “It wasn’t bad, today. I was just talking with Catra, and she said some things…”

Perfuma’s grasp tightens in concern. “Did you two get into an argument?”

“No, nothing like that. She, um… well, we were talking about… us.” She keeps her gaze on their hands, not quite able to meet Perfuma’s eye. Her blush has cooled, if not completely receded. “And about her and Adora. How she’s happier now— in her own words, at least, but you can already see that just from looking at her.”

“That’s true,” Perfuma agrees. “She’s found her home, too.”

Scorpia lifts her gaze, finally, and they share a smile.

“Did Catra say something to upset you?”

Scorpia mulls the question over. “No… no, I don’t think I was upset. Maybe a little concerned, but it wasn’t Catra’s fault.”

“Oh?”

“We, ah… well, she said some things. About her and Adora, that… just got me thinking, I suppose.”

“Things?” Perfuma presses, frowning. “Such as…?”

“Well, uh, ah—”

Scorpia’s gaze flies around the room, that blush returning with full force behind her cheeks, but Perfuma’s touch grounds her. She looks down at their hands, again, at the elegant brown fingers wrapped around her pincer. The way Perfuma holds her hand so readily has always amazed her. The first time Scorpia had felt her touch, had seen that delicate hand slip so trustingly between her pincers, she had been unable to focus on anything else.

If her hands were capable of perspiring, they would have been drenched, but Perfuma has never shown a lick of concern for the danger that she puts her fingers in just be close to her. She’s never complained about the cold carapace, or the sharp edges of her claws that Scorpia is always so afraid to touch her with, lest she nick the skin with one clumsy mistake. All it would take is a _sneeze_ , and—

Scorpia cuts the thought off before the image can take root in her mind’s eye.

Perfuma has complete trust in her. More trust than Scorpia has in herself, certainly, but she’s still working on that.

Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Scorpia forces herself to meet Perfuma’s gaze.

What she finds staring back at her comes as no surprise, not anymore – an outpouring of concern, reassurance, and love that makes her feel like she could conquer the world.

(Like she already might have, while everyone else was sleeping.) 

“Catra mentioned how she and Adora are together, now,” she says, and her voice sounds steady and strong, and does not belie the way her belly flips or her heart hammers inside her chest, _pit-pat_ like a drum beat, growing faster. “The way that they’re… _together_ , together. As lovers, I mean. And then she asked me about us.”

Perfuma’s lips audibly part.

“O-oh…”

“I didn’t say anything!” Scorpia hurries to add, and then winces. “Because, well, because there’s… we haven’t… I, um…”

Perfuma sets her tea down and places a hand to Scorpia’s blushing cheek.

Her fingers feel soft and warm, retaining the heat from her cup.

“Shh, that’s okay.” Scorpia leans into her touch, eyes closed and embarrassed. “Is that what upset you? Because it’s perfectly normal, you know that. When we make love— ah, _if_ we make love, it’ll be because we’re ready and it’s what we both want. There’s no rush for that. There’s no need for it to happen at all, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

Scorpia peels her eyes open. “No, it’s not that… really?”

“Of course,” Perfuma nods. She has recovered her smile, and relief swarms in on Scorpia like a high tide, cooling her blush. “We don’t ever have to do anything you don’t want to. I only want to make you happy, and you already make me _so_ happy. I couldn’t be any happier if I’d tried. You balance me, Scorpia. Completely.”

The sigh that leaves Scorpia is heavy relief. She allows Perfuma to take the teacup from her hand and set it down somewhere that it won’t be knocked over. She takes a seat on the same cushion as Scorpia, so close that Scorpia can feel the heat from her thigh, with the skirt of Perfuma’s dress draped across her knee.

“Do you feel better now?” Perfuma asks, and links their arms.

Scorpia smiles without realising, and nods her head.

“I feel the same way,” she says, “about wanting to make you happy.”

Perfuma makes a noise somewhere between amusement and glee.

“And, it’s not that I don’t want to,” Scorpia adds. “To _be together_ with you, I mean, it’s just, um.”

She clears her throat and looks down to where Perfuma’s arm is linked through her own, as though she hasn’t any regard for the coarse plating and natural spiking from her carapace digging into her skin. The two of them couldn’t look more different, she thinks, and that fact is never more striking than when they’re sitting side by side.

As Scorpia is staring, a frown worrying her brow, Perfuma’s arm slips from hers. She places a hand at Scorpia’s bicep, and Scorpia watches its slow descent down her arm, gentle fingertips running each spike in her plating, until Perfuma threads their hands together. The move is so natural, so without reserve, that it dislodges the boulder of concern weighing upon Scorpia’s chest. She breathes a little easier, without it.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” She speaks to their hands, because it’s easier than seeing the look on Perfuma’s face – upset, dismissive? She can’t bring herself to confirm. Scorpia lifts her other pincer into her field of vision, pinching her claws together and studying the sharp glare from the torches that makes the red carapace shine. “As Force Captain, these were an advantage in combat training, that’s how I was taught to think of them. They’re not very good at being gentle.”

She hears Perfuma’s sigh beside her, but rather than resigned, she sounds _frustrated_.

Scorpia turns to her, surprised, only to find Perfuma watching her already, her gaze fierce – but smiling.

“You’ve only ever been gentle with me,” Perfuma says, and it’s true. Of course, it’s true. The love Perfuma shows her warrants nothing less. “You’ve never hurt me once.”

“That doesn’t mean that it won’t ever happen, even by accident. I don’t know what I’d do, if I…”

Drawing her bottom lip into her mouth, Perfuma’s expression turns thoughtful. “Well… how does it usually work, when you touch yourself?”

Blood pools in Scorpia’s cheeks quicker than she has time to properly process the question, and then she balks. Beside her, cool as an evening breeze, Perfuma waits patiently for an answer.

“ _Oh!_ You’re serious?” Scorpia laughs, but it’s a blunt huff of humourless air that catches in her throat. “No, I don’t— I’ve _never_.”

She holds up the pincer that Perfuma is holding as evidence.

“I don’t think that would be very comfortable…?”

She laughs again, but her stomach is tight with unease, and it sounds more like a noise of discomfort even to her own ears. She chances a glance at Perfuma, but there’s no mockery in her expression, only quiet intrigue. Large, brown eyes study her, and Scorpia can almost see the ideas formulating within them. She swallows audibly.

“I’m glad we’re having this conversation,” Perfuma says, smile growing. “Because if that’s really your only concern, and I don’t want to put any pressure on you, of course, but I… I’d be more than happy to lend a hand.”

Her cheeks have turned the prettiest pink that Scorpia has ever seen – the colour of clouds at sunset, with all the warmth of the glowing orange sun bursting through them. She stares, dumbfounded, unable to quite comprehend the idea of— of _Perfuma_ — of them—

“You don’t need to answer yet,” Perfuma says into the loaded silence between them. “And you don’t need to say yes. This is something I’d like to do for you, but only if it’s something that you want.”

“Oh, okay… How would you do it?”

Scorpia’s blush deepens with the question, and she grimaces instantly, but Perfuma’s expression does not change – it remains open, and reassuring, and so gently smiling that Scorpia’s stomach aches with how much love she feels for her. Too often, she feels it like an eruption bursting out of her, and has to take a steadying breath. Her love for Perfuma is tender and violent, and all of those other contradictions that never made sense to her until she felt it for herself. 

“Well,” Perfuma says, and her hand slips from Scorpia’s, trailing a path up along her arm, sending shivers through the muscles underneath her skin, “I would want to make you comfortable, first and foremost.” Her voice turns whisper-soft, as Perfuma trails a path across Scorpia’s shoulder with her fingertips, then up along her throat – where Scorpia swallows, mouth dry – and into choppy, white hair.

“I would lay you down in bed,” Perfuma continues, looking at her with so much love in her eyes, “and I would kiss you. I would kiss you for every day that I’ve loved you.”

Scorpia’s chest heaves with her sigh.

“I-I would like that…”

“And then when you’re ready,” leaving Scorpia’s hair, now, to trail down the side of her breastplate, her turning stomach, to the thigh that almost jumps as Perfuma’s touch curls around it, warm and distracting, “I’d show you how good we can make each other feel without even using our hands.” Her eyes twinkle with mischief as she adds, “For our first time, at least.”

Heat sinks between Scorpia’s legs, pulsing in time with her over-quick heartbeat. The feeling is familiar, but magnified – unignorable. It sinks into Scorpia like heat from a flame, and flushes her pink from the inside out. Perfuma’s hand retreats a respectable distance to her knee, and that makes her feel less like she’s about to explode, but only marginally. Upon seeing the effect that she has on her, Perfuma’s smile turns radiant.

Scorpia doesn’t think she’s ever wanted to kiss her more.

“How does that sound?”

A rush of air leaves Scorpia’s lungs. “Incredible.”

“Yeah?” Perfuma asks, and Scorpia nods, expression pleading. A trill of laughter tumbles past Perfuma’s lips, and she leans forward to press a kiss to Scorpia’s flushed cheek. “Whenever you’re ready, my love. You know there’s no rush.”

“Uh, _now?_ ”

Perfuma blinks. “Right now?”

“Yeah,” Scorpia nods, her gaze drawn to Perfuma’s mouth, the partially parted pink lips that she can already taste, “right now— if it’s not too much trouble?”

She has just enough time to see Perfuma’s expression soften—

“You could never ask too much of me.”

—before she kisses her.

She kisses her, and it’s like that first time all over again – adrenaline, and heat, and breathless _relief_.

The ache inside of Scorpia simultaneously dissolves and rages, assuaged by Perfuma’s softness and reignited by the desire that she instils with every touch. Scorpia is clumsy, with her hands and her heart, but she’s never felt in safer company. Perfuma’s lips press against her own with practiced rhythm, each kiss longer than the last, their bodies gradually navigating closer until Perfuma is almost in her lap, with one arm around her shoulders, her body warm and so close that Scorpia can feel every harried breath she takes. 

Scorpia likes the shiver that she causes, when Perfuma fists a handful of hair between her fingers, and _pulls_.

It’s only when Scorpia moans, quiet and muffled into her mouth, that Perfuma catches herself and breaks the kiss.

Scorpia’s eyes open to parted lips and flushed cheeks, and warm brown eyes that look even darker with Perfuma’s pupils as diluted as they are. The air between them is hot and harried, their faces still so close that their breaths mingle. Scorpia wets her lips in anticipation for more.

“Are you certain?” Perfuma asks.

She rights herself in Scorpia’s lap so that she’s facing her, practically straddling her, and brings Scorpia’s pincers to her lap. The position gives her a new yet welcome height advantage; Scorpia can look nowhere else but up. An old, familiar ulcer of anxiety flares in Scorpia’s belly, threatens everything, but she is far too distracted to pay it any mind.

“I’ve never been more certain about anything. I trust you.”

Perfuma’s smile softens her face. “Then let me take you to bed.”

And so Scorpia does.

They leave the torches lit, the tea cooling and all but forgotten. With one hand wrapped around a pincer, Perfuma leads the way to her bedroom – a secluded section of tent that’s already lit with sconces dotted in every shadowy corner. As they step past the partitioning curtain into the bedchamber, Perfuma unfastens the drapes so that they fall closed across the entryway, secluding them inside.

A large bed fills the room’s centre – its frame a living network of vines with pink flowers growing from it. The blossom permeates the air with a dainty floral scent that Scorpia is well familiar with, already.

Perfuma releases her pincer as they reach the bed, and turns them so that Scorpia can feel the edge of it against the back of her legs. She brings a hand to the leather corset protecting Scorpia’s ribs. Her fingers trace the laces and hooks that keep the armour secured, and it’s not the first time that Perfuma has helped her undress before, nimble as her fingers are that Scorpia can take almost twice as long alone, but it is different this time. It turns Scorpia breathless, just to watch her work.

“Can I remove this?” Perfuma asks, once the corset is unfastened and hanging loosely to her body.

Scorpia nods her consent.

She feels a rush of cool air as the corset is removed, and lifts one pincer to the catch in her undershirt, snagging the fastening at her throat. The soft leather droops immediately away from her shoulders, revealing the outline that it has left behind in her skin, a harsh indentation that Perfuma massages with her fingertips as she peels the undershirt the rest of the way down her torso.

Scorpia manages her trousers herself, feeling awkward as she meanders them around her knee plates and tail, but Perfuma barely seems to notice. She looks upon Scorpia’s body, with its hard lines and old scars, with all its girth and clumsy height, like it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Scorpia feels it, at least, as she stands there in nothing but her breast band and her smalls.

Perfuma catches her eye, and the smile they share is private and just a little giddy.

“Aren’t you going to undress, too?” Scorpia asks, and Perfuma hums a laugh.

“If you wish it.”

She reaches behind herself to unfasten the tie around her waist, and then again for the halter-neck clasp at the back of her neck. As soon as she releases the fabric, the dress pools at Perfuma’s feet, and all that remains of Scorpia’s amusement goes up in flames at the sudden and very prominent realisation that Perfuma had not been wearing a breast band beneath her clothes.

Before she can drink in her fill of rich brown skin and the smattering of freckles that dapple it, Perfuma has hands at Scorpia’s hips and is gently guiding her backwards to the bed.

“Lie down here, please?”

Scorpia falters, barely, but finds her balance before she can trip.

“Oh, of course.”

She lands heavily, and the mattress sinks beneath her weight.

Scorpia eases herself to the top of the bed, her tail twisting up from beneath her to curve comfortably over the edge. She holds herself up on her elbows and watches as Perfuma joins her, lithe and sensual as she crawls up the bed. By the time she reaches her, Scorpia’s flush has sunk pink into her chest. Perfuma lays a palm against the fevered skin, and twines a leg between Scorpia’s as she nestles closer.

Scorpia studies her face – open admiration, careless with emotion.

“You don’t have to be nervous,” Perfuma tells her.

“I’m not.”

“Your heart is pounding…”

“Yeah, that’s nothing new,” Scorpia grins, and kisses her.

Perfuma is the first to deepen it, to tease along Scorpia’s lips with a quick flick of her tongue. The next time she does it, Scorpia parts her lips for her, and they make simultaneous noises of pleasure as their tongues meet. It’s not that they’ve never kissed like this before – they have, and Scorpia has always enjoyed it – but having Perfuma’s almost-naked body pressed against her heightens every sensation.

Wherever their skin meets, Scorpia flushes with heat.

It’s only when Perfuma repositions herself, rolling Scorpia back into the bed so that she can slide on top of her, that Scorpia feels just how quickly her heart is beating – and realises that she’s not the only one affected. The realisation comes with a surge of emotion – it feels powerful in Scorpia’s veins, and the air turns quick around her, like static building before a lightning strike.

Scorpia’s pincers rest at the small of Perfuma’s back, holding her close, careful not to apply pressure or angle any sharp edges towards her skin. Perfuma does not show the same reserve; while one hand settles against Scorpia’s cheek, the other slides along her abdomen, over her chest, applying subtle pressure against her breast band in time with Scorpia’s gasps and quiet moans.

“Is this okay?” Perfuma asks her, as her hand settles fully upon her breast.

Scorpia is sure she feels how hard her heart is hammering, but that only encourages it quicker.

She nods her head, too far gone for words, and it’s a relief when Perfuma kisses her again – when she does not ask more of her than she can give. Her head feels cloudy, and her body electrified, but Scorpia has never been more content. More so, when Perfuma applies pressure in the hand that cups her breast. The moan that rolls out from the very back of Scorpia’s throat is unrecognisable as her own.

Perfuma does not tease her.

For every moan that she elicits in Scorpia, she repeats the attention that caused it until Scorpia’s breath turns ragged, and she parts from their kisses with breathless nonsense. Perfuma waits to see the look on her face every time – flushed cheeks, swollen lips – and cannot keep from smiling, knowing that she’d caused the reaction.

Gradually, the pincers at the small of Perfuma’s back gain confidence. She runs smooth carapace along Perfuma’s bare skin, up and down in a steady rhythm, mindful not to let any spiked edges touch her. Perfuma’s body shivers delicately, gooseflesh erupting along her upper half, and she mewls into Scorpia’s mouth.

“M’sorry,” Scorpia manages, as their lips part. “Too cold?”

Perfuma blinks, dazed, down at her.

“No,” she breathes, “no, I like it when you touch me.”

Scorpia’s blush returns full force, but all she’s aware of is Perfuma’s sweet laughter, until she kisses her again.

When Perfuma begins to move, Scorpia has little brain capacity left to wonder why. She is distracted by the mouth upon her own, and the hand around her breast, and the chest flushed warm against her skin, that when a thigh slips easily and without fanfare between her own, Scorpia is unprepared for the sudden spike of arousal that sends her up in flames.

Her body stiffens.

Immediately, Perfuma’s mouth leaves her own.

When Scorpia can manage to open her eyes, it’s to a concerned and near-apologetic gaze that she does not first understand, until Perfuma begins to remove her thigh. Without thinking, Scorpia’s pincers secure her fast in place. The reaction is instinctive, and just a little embarrassing when she realises what she’s doing.

“Ah— are you okay?” Scorpia asks, easing her pincers back towards the safe territory of Perfuma’s back.

Perfuma nods her head. “Is this too much? We can stop if you want t—”

“I don’t,” Scorpia blurts out. “I really don’t want to stop. Oh, but, we can! If you want to.”

She is not expecting Perfuma’s laugh, and for a moment she worries that it’s at her expense, until Perfuma kisses her in a rush. Their lips part noisily, and Perfuma’s grin is barely tempered as she retreats. Scorpia lies beneath her, content to watch, as Perfuma adjusts their position so that she is properly straddling her hips.

Blonde hair tumbles carelessly down her shoulders, curtaining the swell of her breasts and dusky brown nipples. Scorpia’s gaze follows the trail of freckles that indiscriminately speckle her skin. When her gaze returns to Perfuma’s face, the look of peace, and love, and content there all but doubles her heartrate.

“You’re so beautiful,” Perfuma whispers, and Scorpia almost chokes when saying it back.

Her pincers have been resting at a neutral place beside Perfuma’s thighs, but Scorpia allows them to be taken, guided, as Perfuma brings them to her own hips. Scorpia does not resist her; she is pliant, and open, and ready to receive all that Perfuma will give her. When Perfuma encourages her to clasp her pincers around her hips, however, a tremor of concern gives her pause.

“It’s okay,” Perfuma tells her, “you won’t hurt me.”

And by now, Scorpia is learning to have faith in that blind trust.

She grasps Perfuma’s hips loosely in her pincers, and Perfuma’s expression melts with her smile.

Then she begins to move.

Scorpia can look nowhere but up, into the heavy-lidded brown eyes staring back at her, as Perfuma rolls their hips together.

It takes a moment of trial and error for their bodies to align _just so_ , and Scorpia is not anticipating her reaction when they do.

As Perfuma presses against her, the pressure mounting, the pace agonising, all of her weight bearing down upon the single most point of sensitivity between her legs, Scorpia’s head falls back into the pillow with long, low groan. Perfuma clamps her teeth around her bottom lip as she continues to move, languid and lazy against her, drawing shorter, quicker pants from Scorpia’s mouth as the pressure builds between them.

The friction is almost painful, in how just short of perfection it feels, their smalls turning restrictive against their skin and yet quickly dampening as their arousal builds.

Perfuma quickens the pace when she can no longer stand it.

Her hands move from Scorpia’s pincers, where she has been holding her in place, to splay along the thick of Scorpia’s abdomen. She is solid beneath her, and warm, and Perfuma can feel her muscles crunching as Scorpia begins to grind her hips upwards, seeking more friction, unable to stop her body’s instinctive movements in its search for release.

Scorpia has to force herself to open her eyes, to watch Perfuma’s face and the flush that sinks from her cheeks all the way down into her chest. She is a vision. Scorpia wants to tell her, again, but hasn’t the capacity for speech. The burning, pulsing arousal between her thighs has her on the very edge of utter devastation, and Scorpia craves the wreck like nothing she’s ever felt before.

From her mouth, half-garbled pleas and exclamations muddle together, incoherent and desperate.

Her hips move without reason, without thought – the rhythm is something instinctive that Scorpia has never tapped into before, but which she knows inherently. Her pincers slide to Perfuma’s ass, better to hold her there, to pull her in, and in, and _in_ , as Scorpia grinds her hips upwards to meet her. Between them, a mess with arousal and sweat, their underwear turns sticky in each place that it meets.

It takes only a few more quick thrusts from Perfuma’s hips for Scorpia to lose her grasp on the present, and tumble head-over-tail into her first climax.

The sensation draws a surprised shout from her mouth, as heat burns upwards from the soles of her feet, blazing through her trembling body and laying waste to every other thought or concern as it touches her mind. She is vaguely aware of Perfuma above her, of the sweet noises coming from her mouth, of her body shaking and spasming and falling upon her chest with one last, heavy breath.

Scorpia feels _warm_.

In the dark behind her eyelids, the world returns to her, peaceful and quiet.

It takes several minutes for Scorpia’s heartrate to resemble anything neutral. She comes to with blinking eyes and groggy awareness of her surroundings – more importantly, of Perfuma’s body sprawled upon her chest, limp and spent. Scorpia cannot help but smile when she sees her. From this angle, Perfuma is no more than one flushed cheek and a closed eye, and a single freckled shoulder protruding from the mass of all that blonde hair.

It takes an absurd amount of strength for Scorpia to move again.

She dips her head low, until her lips meet the crown of Perfuma’s head, nose buried in the sweet scent of spring, and kisses her there.

Perfuma gives a weak moan in response, and lifts her head.

Drooping eyelids and rosy cheeks, Perfuma hides her mouth in Scorpia’s chest as she yawns, and then meets her gaze.

Her smile is like morning come early, Scorpia thinks, and impossible to not reciprocate.

“Hi,” Perfuma whispers.

Scorpia uses a pincer to tuck blonde curls back behind Perfuma’s ear, revealing more of her blush.

“You’re amazing.”

Perfuma dips her head with a laugh – a quiet thing that grows louder even as she tries to contain it, until Scorpia can’t help but to join in. Scorpia isn’t even sure why they’re laughing, but there’s joy like a volcano inside of her, and she wants to let it out – she wants to share it all with the world, with anyone who’ll listen.

When they settle down, again, Perfuma wipes moisture from her eyes and traces patterns along the exposed skin of Scorpia’s chest with her fingertips.

It’s quiet – beyond the tent, Scorpia can hear distant night-noises from the surrounding Plumerian woodland. Her body feels heavy and sated in a way that it hasn’t before. As her mind returns from post-coital dozing, Scorpia begins to run her pincers along Perfuma’s bare back, up and down in a rhythm. She watches her hands over Perfuma’s shoulder, the smooth carapace running along vaguely perspiring skin, so careful not to catch Perfuma on a sharp angle.

She can be gentle, she knows she can be gentle, but Scorpia enjoys the reminder.

Between her legs, she feels sticky and cool, and shivers at the thought of Perfuma in a similar state.

“Thank you for being so patient with me,” Scorpia says, when she’s capable of forming coherent thought again, and it must be the tone of her voice that rouses Perfuma, that has her pushing up on an elbow and putting scant distance between their chests, so that she can better see Scorpia’s face. Her expression brokers on concerned, but there’s no need for it – Scorpia smiles at her, so that she knows. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do that. Not just… because of these.”

Over Perfuma’s shoulder, Scorpia lifts her pincers.

When she looks back to Perfuma, it’s to find her attentively waiting for Scorpia to continue.

“I thought I might feel differently, after this.”

“How so?” 

“Like maybe I’d been missing out, all this time.” Her pincers settle against the small of Perfuma’s back, again, completely at ease. She uses them to hold Perfuma closer. “But I don’t. It feels like this happened at the perfect time in my life, and with the perfect person.”

Perfuma softens, at that, and Scorpia leans in to meet her for a kiss.

The passion behind it is quiet, if ever present, is warm and bold and peaceful. It’s no longer a raging fire against Scorpia’s skin, or a natural phenomenon erupting inside her chest, too bright and too strong and world-shattering. It’s gentle like sunset, orange-pink in the sky, the scent of spring rain. It’s _home_ , just like Perfuma is home, no matter which bed they fall asleep in side by side at night. 

“I feel the same,” Perfuma says, when their lips part and their foreheads touch. “I love you so much, Scorpia.”

Scorpia’s cheeks flush, and she wonders if there’ll come a point when hearing those words from Perfuma’s mouth will ever not cause her heart to skip.

“I love you, too. But I have one question.”

Perfuma kisses her again. “Oh?”

Gathering her strength, Scorpia sits up just enough that she can bring her mouth to the shell of Perfuma’s ear.

“When can we do that again?”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Say Something Loving_ by The xx. 
> 
> Support is extremely appreciated. Kudos/comments/bookmarks all mean the world to me. <3


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